Mary Anne's Long Summer
by greer
Summary: At long last, a fanfic where no gets pregnant! Mary Anne deals with Kristy and Dawn, both of whom have very different perspectives on their current lives and put Mary Anne in the middle.
1. one

"Summer!" Claudia cried out dramatically and flopped backwards onto her bed.  
  
Kristy smiled at that and had another one-word exclamation: "Order!"   
  
Stacey rolled her eyes. "Kristy, there hasn't been a club for three years."  
  
Kristy looked hurt. "I know, Stace. But we're all together in Claudia's room... it just felt appropriate."  
  
"I don't think I could deal with the added work of the Club during the school year. We're all so busy," I reminded her, hoping to stop a Great Idea in its tracks.  
  
"That may be true, Mary Anne, but think of how great the Club would have looked on college applications!" Kristy cried out mournfully.  
  
"Don't even mention college. I'm still having trouble with high school," Claudia moaned.  
  
"We start applying in the fall, guys. Isn't that exciting?" Stacey asked. Stacey had been ready for college as soon as we had finished freshmen year. "Older, more attractive guys, challenging courses, getting to choose where in the country you want to live..." She trailed off.  
  
"Except for the challenging courses part, it sounds okay, I guess," Claudia said.  
  
Stacey gave her shoulder a squeeze. "You'll be fine, Claud."  
  
Kristy interrupted this touching moment with her typical "Any new business?"  
  
"Kristy..." Stacey said warningly.  
  
"Oh, let her have her fun," Claudia said laughingly.  
  
"I have some business, actually," I interjected.  
  
"What is it, Mary Anne?" Kristy asked, leaning forward excitedly in her director's chair. The pencil over her ear fell off and as she leaned over to retrieve it from Claudia's messy floor, the chair topped over. Her attempt at a professional demeanour at a meeting for a club that no longer existed was now officially a failure.  
  
"Well," I said, laughing a little but trying to cover it up so Kristy wouldn't feel bad, "Dawn is coming in from California next week. I'd like to throw a little 'Welcome Home' get-together, with all of her friends from Stoneybrook."  
  
Claudia and Stacey stopped their hysterics long enough to give me their vote of approval. Kristy, on the other hand, had forgotten her humiliating moment and was now in Idea mode, eyes shining.   
  
"We can invite all the old kids--like the Barretts, and the Newtons, and--"  
  
"Don't forget the Stones," I interrupted. "Dawn loved to take kids to their farm."  
  
"Where can we hold it?" Kristy wondered. "We can't use the barn, obviously." The barn had been converted into my family's home when our first home, the farmhouse on the same property, burned down in a terrible fire. It was a traumatic event; it's been nearly four years and I'm only now starting to feel really healed. Having a beautiful new barn-house, however, helped a lot.  
  
"Sure we can," I said brightly. "We can make it a house party."  
  
Stacey and Claudia weren't really listening to us. They were listening to Claud's radio which was tuned, as always, to WSTO. "Listen to this song, guys," Stacey said. "Doesn't it make you nostalgic?"  
  
It was U4Me's hit from when we were in eighth grade, "I Don't Want to Say Goodbye."  
  
"We should have pop culture things from four years ago at the party," Kristy said. "Make Dawn feel like she never left."  
  
Claudia wrinkled her nose. "Some things are better left in the past, Kristy."  
  
"Come on," Kristy said. "We're all here, starting a club project, listening to U4Me... doesn't it feel just like before?" 


	2. two

Four years ago, it would have been me, Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Dawn sitting in Claudia's room at a meeting of the Baby-Sitters Club, or the BSC, as it was known colloquially. We would have been answering the phone non-stop, me with the record book in hand, hastily scheduling jobs for my best friends. We would have just finished the seventh grade and looking forward to a summer full of traveling and fun before school once again reared its ugly head with the coming of September and eighth grade. Kristy's parents hadn't gotten remarried yet and my father and Dawn's mother had just started seeing each other, and not even exclusively. Mallory was a sitting charge, and Abby, Logan, Jessi, and Shannon were either still living in their former towns or unaware of the BSC's existence. Disney World, Claudia's grandmother dying, the wedding, the playgroup, camp--it seemed like the school year would be terribly dull in comparision with our summer, one chock-full of both sad and happy events.  
  
Once we were in the eighth grade, it seemed like we were there forever. So much happened that year that in retrospect, it seems impossible for so much to have happened in under ten months. But it did. Stacey moved back to New York. Her parents divorced and she moved back here. My father married Dawn's mother. Dawn moved back and forth between here and California. Jessi and Mal joined the Club. We went to California, Hawaii, Europe--everywhere. Dawn's father got remarried and his new wife had a baby. Our house burned down. I started dating Logan and I broke up with Logan. And that's not even half of it. It seemed as if the stars aligned at that moment and caused everything to happen at once.  
  
With the collapse of the BSC, our lives slowed down considerably. Our lives now revolved around our families, schoolwork, our friends, and our own separate interests. We were all still friends with each other, but we lived less like a unit and more as a group of four individuals with their own lives who share them with each other in passing. We remained the best of friends, yes, but there was no longer a new group project every week to work on or mysteries to solve.  
  
We had moved on.  
  
Yet here we were, all gathered in Claudia's room as if nothing had passed in the last four years. The only things missing were Jessi and Mallory sitting on the floor, leaning against Claudia's bed making gum wrapper chains and giggling about things as sixth graders tend to do.  
  
Kristy especially seemed the same. Then again, Kristy would never change. Ever since we were in diapers, she's been stubborn, loud, bossy, and an incredibly wonderful friend to have. Wearing an outfit that fit in with what we endearing call her "uniform"--shorts, a ratty old tshirt, and her hair carelessly held back from her face in a ponytail--Kristy looked basically the same, only a bit taller and older. She was still all-business, and was ranked #2 in our class, as well as being a leading athlete and an all-around doer, leader, joiner.  
  
While her siblings had gotten older, and Charlie had transferred to Cornell after excelling during his year at Stoneybrook University (he hadn't felt ready to fully move on from home after graduating from high school) and Sam was a sophomore at Ithaca, her other siblings were the same as ever. Karen was still unmistakenly Karen, except that she had gotten more Kristy-like as she had grown, if that was possible. Andrew and Emily were both shy, sweet and adorable.  
  
Nannie, her beloved grandmother who takes care of the Brewer children, had a bout with breast cancer, but in true Nannie fashion, she fought it hard and now was in remission. Watson and Elizabeth, Kristy's stepfather and mother, were both doing well. Life at the Brewer mansion has calmed down at last. Sure it was noisy and fun, but it was stable.  
  
As for Claudia, she has spent high school enraptured in art. She was still interested in fashion, and boys, but art took top priority. All the boys she dated she met in her art classes, thus combining the two interests. The other-worldy qualities that Trevor Sandbourne, her seventh grade love, possessed were topped by these new guys and their own eccentricities. I never knew quite what I'd say to her new boyfriends. They either seem very deep or utterly bizarre.   
  
Janine, of course, went to MIT. Peaches and Russ, her aunt and uncle, had another baby, this time a boy. They named him Nicholas, and he was absolutely adorable.   
  
Claudia remained independent, funny, and deeply loyal. Her grades improved slightly, and while her parents were holding out for perhaps a small liberal arts college, we all knew that she wouldn't be going anywhere but art school.  
  
As for Stacey, well, she'd always seemed very grown up to me. She went from being a sophisticated thirteen-year-old to be a sophisticated sixteen-year-old. Her once-fluffy blonde hair was now stick straight and her clothes had gone from Bellair's to Barneys. She got back together with Ethan in the summer after eighth grade and was still with him. She doesn't believe in marriage, or so she claimed, but she and Ethan seemed very secure in their relationship and they showed no sign of splitting up, even though Ethan was now enrolled at Cooper Union and is very busy with his courses.  
  
Her mother had ran a clothing store, Paradisa, ever since the end of eighth grade. We all loved to go there and buy clothes. (Except for Kristy, but we dragged her along anyway.) Although Stacey's father had since remarried and adopted a child, a little girl from China they named Esme that Stacey adored, Ms. Spencer showed no intention of dating anyone seriously yet. Stacey and her mother were content in their small family unit.  
  
And me? Well, I suppose that I had grown more independent and outspoken since the BSC ended. I worked hard in my classes, especially history, which had always been my favorite. I still had a preppyish, conservative style and my hair was still on the short side. I dated a few guys, but nothing really special. My life was not exciting, and I was glad for it. The fire was enough excitement to last a decade.  
  
My stepmother, Sharon, was still studying to become an architect while freelancing part-time. My father became a partner in his law firm. While they were both busy, I had what I had always wanted: a family with a mother I could talk to about things that I couldn't discuss with my father and also my dad being the great parent he had been all along. It was a bumpy road, but things were now smooth.  
  
The only thing missing in my family was Dawn. But she was on her way to Stoneybrook, and she would be here for the whole summer. I couldn't wait. 


	3. three

shellie: At the end of the Friends Forever series, the former Mrs. McGill decides to go back to her maiden name, which is Spencer. Also, I am trying to follow the traditional format of the BSC books. They are very formulaic, obviously, and it is a well-known fact that chapter one is short scene that sets up the rest of the story and chapter two is where they introduce all of the characters with a little biography. As for Mal and Jessi... they'll make an appearance at the party, but nothing major. banana_split: people who just went through a bad breakup tend not to like love stories very much. they prefer carnage. lots of carnage.  
  
and now... on to chapter three.  
  
As soon as I stepped across the threshold of my house, I was knocked away by the wonderful smells coming from inside. All of the sudden I was absolutely famished.  
  
I sat down to a dinner of Sharon's special vegetarian pasta and my father's homemade bread. He had never made bread before he married Sharon, but he helped Sharon once and he realized that he liked nothing better than to be greeted by the smell of fresh bread out of the oven. He also liked the stress relief of punching the dough down once it has risen--as a lawyer, he has a lot of stress! Now he makes bread at least once a week. I must say, it's not a bad deal at all.  
  
"Dawn called while you were out, Mary Anne," Sharon said as soon as we had sat down to eat. She passed me the bowl of spaghetti and I helped myself.  
  
"Yes," Dad said. "She's coming a little, ah, earlier than we expected."  
  
"Really? That's great!" I said. I couldn't wait to see my sister again.  
  
"I know," Sharon said, her eyes shining. "We have so much to do though. Her flight is coming in tomorrow night."  
  
"Tomorrow?" I couldn't believe it. Tomorrow, I would see my sister again.  
  
"We have to get her room ready, buy food, do some laundry, get this place looking nice..." Dad trailed off.  
  
"I guess so," Sharon said. "I was thinking more of the lines of going to the greengrocer and thinking up things we want to do while she's here. But we can do those things too," she added quickly, seeing the look on my father's face.   
  
While Sharon and Dad talked animatedly about what had to be done, I quickly wolfed down the rest of my dinner and then excused myself. "I have to make some phone calls," I said.  
  
I went over to the living room area of the house and sank down into the white couch. I reached over for the phone and dialed Kristy's number.   
  
"Guess what I just found out?" I told her.  
  
"What?" she asked excitedly.  
  
"Dawn's coming tomorrow night!" I told her tomorrow.  
  
"Oh no," she groaned.   
  
"Kristy, why on earth would Dawn coming early be a bad thing?"  
  
"That's not enough time to plan a party! Are you crazy?"  
  
I laughed. "We don't have to have the party right away," I told her.  
  
She sighed. "It'd be better that way."   
  
"Whatever, Kristy. Look, I was thinking, maybe we shouldn't have our old charges at this party. We should just invite people from school."  
  
"Why?" Kristy was aghast. "Kids were a huge part of the time when Dawn was living here."  
  
"I know, Kristy, but it's not those years anymore. I mean, we all may still baby-sit on occasion, but Dawn doesn't at all. Outside of her little sister Gracie, I mean. And Jeff does most of that."  
  
"So what," Kristy said bluntly. "That doesn't mean she doesn't still like children."  
  
"I know," I said. "But the things she tells me about her life, well... I don't know if she would enjoy a party with kids."  
  
"They're not all kids anymore, Mary Anne," she informed me. "The Pike triplets are about to be freshmen in high school."  
  
"Exactly my point. I don't know if Dawn would appreciate a party with freshmen boys."  
  
"Dawn is above that stuff. I know Dawn." I sighed. There was no way I could convince Kristy otherwise. I closed my eyes and counted to ten slowly.  
  
"Okay, Kristy," I relented. "You're the boss, I guess."  
  
There's nothing Kristy liked hearing more than that. "So, who should handle the guest list? Why don't you get out the record book, and Stacey can handle the kids from our class..."  
  
Kristy was off and running. I had a feeling that by the day after tomorrow, I would be welcoming half the people in Stoneybrook under the age of 21 to house.   
  
I didn't care--much. My sister was coming soon, and I could look forward to a summer of being able to talk to her face-to-face, instead of over thousands of miles of telephone wires. 


	4. chapter four

This is not a chapter. This is a message saying that I'm done. I'm burnt out on this BSC fanfiction business. It was great while it lasted, and before this section was taken over by people who a)can't write and b)are more interested in flaming than actually helping anyone.  
  
I wrote BSC because it was fun, it was a release, it garnered a lot of helpful feedback that could be applied to other areas of my writing. But it's not fun anymore.   
  
People do this all the time in all sectors of the online world, but when I say that the chances of me ever updating another fic is slim, I mean that.  
  
Today (7/23) is my seventeenth birthday. At seventeen the one thing I've learned is to know when to quit, and that time, it seems, is now.  
  
If you want to read my other, non-bsc writing, ask.   
  
--greer c. 


End file.
